Cuba coast rose high and near. It is a shore of the fairest
harbors! We made one of these into which emptied a little
river. He named haven and river Saint Catherine. In the
bed of this stream, when we went ashore, we found no little
gold. He took in his hand grains and flakes and one or
two pieces large as beans. It was royal monopoly, gold, and
every man under strict command--to bring to the Admiral
all that was found. Seamen and companions gathered
around him, Admiral, Viceroy and Governor, King Croesus
to be, a tenth of all gold and spoil filling his purse! And
they, too, surely some way they would be largely paid! The
dream hovered, then descended upon us, as many a time it
descended. Great riches and happiness and all clothed in
silk, and every man as he would be and not as he was, a
dim magnificence and a sense of trumpets in the air, acclaiming
us! I remember that day that we all felt this mystic
power and wealth, the Admiral and all of us. For a short
time, there by Saint Catherine's River, we were brought into
harmony. Then it broke and each little self went its way
again. But for that while eighty men had felt as though
we were a country and more than a country. The gold
in the Admiral's hand might have been gold of consciousness.

After this day for days we sailed along Cuba strand,
seeing many a fair haven and entering two or three. There
were villages, and those dusk, naked folk to whom by now
we were well used, running to beach or cliff brow, making
signs, seeming to cry, "Heaven come down, heaven, heaven
and the gods!" The notion of a sail had never come to
them, though with their cotton they might have made them.